May 12, 1910] 



NATURE 



317 



Papers will be read by Mr. Henry Bury, on the relation- 

 of the river Wey to the Blackwater and the Arun ; Mr. 

 E. A. Martin, on results of dewpond investigation ; Mr. 

 J. G. N. Clift, on the Pilgrims' Way between Farnham 

 and Albury ; Dr. W. Martin, the interpretation of maps of 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; Dr. Vaughan 

 Cornish, waves in sand and snow ; Mr. J. W. Tutt, colour 

 in insects ; Mr. A. R. Horwood, the extinction of crypto- 

 gamous plants; and on Saturday evening, June 11 (after 

 the congress), Mr. F. Knock will lecture on aquatic auto- 

 crats and fairieSi There will be several excursions and 

 receptions, and a loan museum, which promises to be of 

 exceptional interest. The local secretary is Mr. Frank 

 Lasham, 6i High Street, Guildford, who will send further 

 particulars on inquiry. 



In the issue of the Archzeological and Ethnological 

 Publications of the University of California for March 

 Mr. T. T. Waterman gives an elaborate account of the 

 ritual of the Diegueno, or, as they call themselves, the 

 Kawakipai, tribe occupying the extreme south of the 

 peninsula. It is remarkable that they have a distinctive 

 cultus of their own, bearing only a slight resemblance to 

 that of their blood-kin the Mohave, or their immediate 

 neighbours the Luiseno. These rites depend little upon 

 their belief in spirit agency. They are based on one or 

 other of two conceptions. The first is that in early infancy, 

 and al&o at adolescence, persons of both sexes are in a 

 condition of peculiar receptivity, children and young men 

 and women being specially liable to external influences, 

 both good and evil, the former being encouraged, the 

 latter repelled by appropriate ceremonies. The second con- 

 ception is the belief in the continued existence of the soul 

 after death. Hence their mourning customs depend upon 

 the fear of injury from the spirits of the dead, whom they 

 endeavour to propitiate by various means, such, for 

 instance, as by burning the goods of the dead man so 

 that his property, in an etherealised form, may pass on for 

 his use to the world of spirits. 



Dr. Comandon" gives details of the application of the 

 kinematograph to the photography of micro-organisms in 

 a paper published in the Bulletin de la Socidte d'Encoitrage- 

 ment pour I'lndustrie nationale (T. 113, No. 3, p. 318). 

 Dark-ground illumination was adopted with sixteen views 

 per second, the exposure being 1/32 of a second. Such 

 objects as trypanosomes and spirilla in blood seem to lend 

 themselves well to the method. It is to be noted that Mr. 

 Duncan in this country several months ago had taken 

 kinematograph views of the circulation of the blood in the 

 frog's web, &c. 



The Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital for March 

 \i., No. 22S) contains several papers of scientific interest, 

 notably one by Major F. Russell (Medical Corps, U.S. 

 .Army) on anti-typhoid vaccination. No untoward results 

 occurred in a series of 3640 vaccinations, and the author 

 believes that the procedure undoubtedly protects to a very 

 great extent against the disease, and is a useful adjunct to 

 other prophylactic measures. In the .April number of the 

 Bulletin (No. 229) Drs. Marine and Zenhart make the 

 interesting observation of the occurrence of g6itre (active 

 thyroid hyperplasia) in fish. The fish were principally pike 

 and bass of Lake Erie, and it is of interest that, in the 

 same district, human g6itre is prevalent, suggesting that 

 the disease is in some way associated with water, an hvpo- 

 thesis long held in connection with gditre in man. 



The Bulletins of the Sleeping Sickness Bureau for March 

 and .April (vol. ii., Nos. 15 and 16) contain the usual useful 

 summary of investigations on trypanosomes, sleeping-sick- 

 NO. -^IT-. VOL. S^] 



ness news, &c. The latter number contains a translation- 

 of an important memoir by Dr. Carlos Chagas on the- 

 new human trypanosome discovered in Brazil, and already 

 referred to in N.*ture (vol. Ixxxi., 1909, p. 46). The 

 parasite seems to be conveyed by a species of bug (probably 

 Conorrhinus megistus, Burm.), the developmental cycle 

 occupying a period of at least eight days. Monkeys and 

 small animals are easily infected. The record of human 

 cases is at present meagre ; in fact, laboratory work in 

 this case seems to have outpaced the clinical. The Bureau 

 has also issued a " subject-index " to the '* Bibliography 

 of Trypanosomes," with corrigenda, compiled by Mr^ 

 C. A. Thimm. 



So-ME experiments described by Mr. G. T. Atkinson irr 

 the last number of the Journal of the Marine Biological 

 Association will be of interest to naturalists engaged in 

 fishery research work. In a previous number of the same 

 journal Mr. .Atkinson showed that the plaice taken from the 

 recently exploited fishing grounds in the Barentz Sea has 

 a much slower growth-rate than similar fish in the North 

 Sea, and also that the males and females did not become 

 mature until much older than in home waters. In the 

 course of a receht voyage to the Barentz Sea in a Hull 

 steam trawler, Mr. .Atkinson brought back a number of 

 living plaice, and marked and liberated these fish in the 

 North Sea in the vicinity of the Dogger Bank. The 

 experiment was highly successful, and in the course of a 

 year about half the plaice had been recaptured. The 

 growth was very rapid when compared with that of normal 

 I North Sea plaice, and there was a great improvement in 

 j the " condition," this always having been characteristically 

 I poor in plaice caught in the Barentz Sea and in Icelandic 

 ■ waters. Such experiments as these point to the possi- 

 bilit\' of a future rational regulation of the sea-fisheries. 

 Traditional methods of the control of the industry- — restric- 

 \ tion of fishing gear, fishing apparatus, inspection, and the 

 like — have proved to be rather futile proceedings, and 

 investigations such as that now under notice point to the 

 I practicability of the actual cultivation of the truly sea- 

 j fishes. It is pointed out by Mr. Atkinson that not only 

 plaice, but even the valuable halibut, may possibly be 

 i transplanted into the North Sea, and that even such com- 

 paratively expensive operations as these are likely to be 

 ! would be better economy than glutting the market with 

 • plaice of such poor quality that they sell for less than 

 one-tenth the price of good North Sea fish, while many 

 have actually had to be used for manure. 



.An important contribution to the vexed question of the 

 cytology of yeast is made in a beautifully illustrated paper 

 published in the Annals of Botany (January), by Messrs- 

 Wager and Peniston. In general confirmation of the 

 earlier work of Mr. Wager, the authors regard the nuclear 

 apparatus of the cell as consisting of the characteristic 

 vacuole, which is so prominent a feature of this organism, 

 together with a nucleolus, which is a homogeneous 

 spherical or oval body lying outside, but in close contact 

 with, the vacuole, and consisting of a plastin-like substance 

 having very little affinity for nuclear stains. The vacuole 

 contains a clear sap and a nuclear network, and both this 

 and the nucleolus may become more or less impregnated 

 with chromatin. This occurs to the greatest degree during 

 the period of highest fermentative activity, and at the 

 same time the chromatin, previously diffused throughout 

 the cytoplasm, disappears. Other remarkable changes in 

 the nuclear apparatus also accompany the process of 

 fermentation, and it is clear that the nucleus is actively 

 concerned in the phenomenon. In bud formation the 

 nucleolus divides amitotically, and one portion passes into. 



